Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown
A Baseball Memoir
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Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown
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Narrated by:
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Gregory Abbey
About this listen
A freewheeling memoir of baseball, journalism, and New York spanning over 50 years of America's pastime
Before he'd covered dozens of World Series; before he'd written about countless hirings, firings, superstars, and scandals, Bill Madden was a cub reporter on one of his first assignments at Yankee Stadium—and manager Ralph Houk had just gone out of his way to spit tobacco juice all over Madden's shoes. “That’s Ralph’s way with rookie writers he doesn’t recognize,” came the explanation. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
So began a Hall of Fame scribe's career, as detailed in this clear-eyed memoir. With verve and candor, Madden reflects on five decades of triumphs, misadventures, and unforgettable characters.
From Jackie Robinson to Aaron Judge; from newsrooms filled with hundreds of teletype machines droning like an army of cicadas to the sleek yet ruthless digital age, keen baseball fans will devour these tales of America's pastime against the backdrop of a rapidly changing media and cultural landscape.
©2025 Bill Madden (P)2025 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
In baseball there are superstars and stars and everyday players and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players and specialists and journeymen and then there are the backup catchers. The Tao of the Backup Catcher is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster and the end of the bench and between the numbers in a sport–and a society–increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics.
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2 out of 5 stars
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So disappointing
- By Mark on 08-01-23
By: Tim Brown, and others
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Thurm
- Memoirs of a Forever Yankee
- By: Thurman Munson, Diana Munson - foreword, Marty Appel - contributor
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 8
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 7
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Story5 out of 5 stars 7
Over forty years since Thurman Munson's death, Thurm: Memoirs of a Forever Yankee revives the life of the famous New York Yankees catcher. In collaboration with longtime Yankee historian Marty Appel, Munson chronicles in his own words his path to the majors, his career success, his approach to being the first team captain in nearly forty years since Lou Gehrig, the Yankees return to glory when they won the 1977 and 1978 World Series, the breakdown of his body as he gave his all to the sport, and his absolute dedication to his wife and children above all else.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Many Sides to Thurman
- By R Cristiano on 11-10-23
By: Thurman Munson, and others
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Ball Four
- The Final Pitch
- By: Jim Bouton
- Narrated by: Jim Bouton
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,883
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,644
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,640
When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Three Ten Year Updates Give Bouton a 5th Star
- By Byron on 08-09-12
By: Jim Bouton
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Lion of the League
- Bob Emslie and the Evolution of the Baseball Umpire
- By: Larry R. Gerlach
- Narrated by: Marlin May
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1
Robert Dean Emslie (1859–1943) spent fifty-six of his eighty-four years in professional baseball—eight as a player and forty-nine as an umpire. When arm problems ended his career as a Major League pitcher, he turned to umpiring, serving in that capacity for thirty-five seasons, then as an umpire supervisor for thirteen years. Emslie endured the rough-and-tumble umpire-baiting 1890s, the Deadball era, injuries from thrown and batted balls, physical and verbal assaults from players and fans, and criticism in the press.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The history of baseball umpires
- By Steven Gerweck on 09-16-24
By: Larry R. Gerlach
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Why We Love Baseball
- A History in 50 Moments
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: Joe Posnanski, Ellen Adair
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 224
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story5 out of 5 stars 203
New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski is back with a masterful ode to the game: a countdown of 50 of the most memorable moments in baseball’s history, to make you fall in love with the sport all over again. Posnanski writes of major moments that created legends, and of forgotten moments almost lost to time. It's Willie Mays’s catch, Babe Ruth’s called shot, and Kirk Gibson’s limping home run; the slickest steals; the biggest bombs; and the most triumphant no-hitters.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Narration
- By Peter on 01-10-24
By: Joe Posnanski
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The Baseball 100
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 30 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 554
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 477
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Story5 out of 5 stars 476
Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski that tells the story of the sport through the remarkable lives of its 100 greatest players. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than 200 years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?”
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2 out of 5 stars
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Just OK. Too Tangential & Distracting
- By Matthew R. on 01-21-23
By: Joe Posnanski
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The Last of His Kind
- Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness
- By: Andy McCullough
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story5 out of 5 stars 46
More than any baseball player of his generation, Clayton Kershaw has embodied the burden of athletic greatness, the prizes and perils that await those who strive for it all. He is a three-time Cy Young award winner, the first pitcher to win National League MVP since Bob Gibson, and a surefire, first-ballot Hall of Famer. Many of his peers consider him the greatest pitcher to ever climb atop a big-league mound.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Last of his kind is one of a kind
- By Anonymous User on 01-28-25
By: Andy McCullough
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Hurdle-isms
- Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball
- By: Clint Hurdle
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 2 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1
In Hurdle-isms, renowned Major League Baseball player, hitting coach, manager, and current Special Assistant to the General Manager for the Colorado Rockies, Clint Hurdle, delivers a collection of his most inspirational stories. You'll find a ton of funny, insightful, and otherwise notable anecdotes from one of Major League Baseball's most successful personalities.
By: Clint Hurdle
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A Baseball Gaijin
- Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back
- By: Aaron Fischman, Don Nomura - foreword
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3
Like many American boys, Tony Barnette yearned to one day make it to “The Show,” playing baseball professionally. The Arizona State pitcher was drafted in 2006 by the in-state Diamondbacks. Gradually ascending the minor-league ladder, it looked like this was the beginning of a blessed life, where he could play the game he loved on the grandest of stages. But things don’t always work out the way we want. On the verge of achieving his lifelong dream after notching a league-high 14 wins in Triple A, Tony looked ahead to 2010 with optimism. That’s when Japan came calling.
By: Aaron Fischman, and others
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Five Banners
- Inside the Duke Basketball Dynasty
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3
In Five Banners, Feinstein tells the inside history of Coach K’s forty-two-year career at Duke and its five NCAA championships, from the first, against Kansas in 1991, to the most recent, in 2015 against Wisconsin. With unparalleled access to Coach K, the team, and its staff, Feinstein takes listeners on a mesmerizing ride into the locker room and onto the court. Full of intimate details, personal memories, and previously untold on- and off-court stories, it is a book that only Feinstein could write.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect
- By T. Smith on 04-09-25
By: John Feinstein